From a basketball standpoint, that can be argued. Nash is 37. The Suns no longer are a championship contender. Why not trade him while he still has significant value and begin the rebuilding process?

From a business perspective, however, there is no debate. Trading Nash would be disastrous.

This isn't Green Bay, Pittsburgh or Boston. Irrelevance here is a death sentence.

"Phoenix can be a tough market," Welts said.

For evidence, the Suns need only look at their immediate neighbor to the east. The Diamondbacks are playing their best baseball in years, fighting for first place in the National League West and fans are responding - by not going out to Chase Field.

The Diamondbacks' average attendance through 33 home games is 22,910. Last year, when Arizona won a measly 65 games, the average home attendance was 25,394.

Part of that is timing. Season-ticket packages were mailed out after the miserable 2010 season - not exactly the best time for a sales pitch - and not surprisingly, renewal rates dropped about 12 percent.

For the same reason, the Cardinals' 53-game sellout streak at University of Phoenix Stadium likely will expire this year because they are coming off a 5-11 season, Kurt Warner isn't coming back and the months-long lockout has turned off the populace.

But there's another factor in play, one that has to influence what the Suns do with Nash: Arizona fans are a divided bunch, their loyalty split between the teams they grew up with and the teams down the street.

According to a Pew Research Center study, no professional market has more residents born out of state than Arizona (72 percent). By comparison, only 27.4 percent of Massachusetts residents were born elsewhere - hence the almost pathological love for the Red Sox, Celtics, etc. - and only 18.8 percent of New York residents were born outside the Big Apple.

That split commitment comes with a price tag: Arizona fans are less likely to support a losing team, or even a mediocre club, because their passion for those teams isn't as deep or unwavering.

Complicating matters for the Suns is their history. Although it hasn't won an NBA championship, Phoenix has the fourth-best winning percentage in league history (.560) and has made the playoffs 30 of its 43 seasons.

Might Suns fans be so spoiled they'd stay away from US Airways Center if Phoenix traded Nash, embarked on a massive rebuilding project and won, say, 30-something games for a couple of years?

"I don't know the answer to that and I hope I don't have to find out," said Lon Babby, the team's president of basketball operations.

Welts said that Babby, in his first year with the franchise, was amazed by the negative reaction to the Suns' 40-42 record this past season.

"For a lot of markets that's a really successful team," Welts said. "But the success we've had comes with higher standards in terms of people's expectations. There's more anxiety when the team isn't solidly winning more than half of its games.

"Does it factor in for us? It does. Historically we've never torn down this team to build it back up again. Some people will say that's the reason we've never won a championship."

Babby and other team officials have examined the history of teams that, like the Suns, stalled at the conference-finals level and then had to decide whether to keep their core players together or tear up the roster. What they discovered: Teams that embarked on a massive rebuilding project took an average of 10 years to get back to the conference finals.

"And there's a lot of pain that goes into it," Babby said. "You're putting yourself in the hands of ping pong balls."

The Suns have said all along they're not going to trade Nash because he's still an elite point guard who can lead them back into the playoffs. But make no mistake: Phoenix's decision to hold onto its best, and most-marketable player, has as much to do with business as it does basketball.

Because as the Diamondbacks have found out - as the Cardinals are about to find out - Valley fans can be more fickle than they are faithful.